Anastasiya Winkel: A 12-year dream comes true in Tokyo

A partnership that formed only a year before the Games, no one saw Luise Wanser and Anastasiya Winkel as a serious prospect for Tokyo 2020 until the Germans finished ninth at the World Championships earlier this year.

Winkel was born and grew up in Ukraine and her story is one of quiet determination to succeed at the highest level.

“I was about 12 years old, growing up in Ukraine, when I first discovered windsurfing. I loved it straight away, being on the water, and the spirit of windsurfing,” she explained on her sailing background.

“I decided I wanted to take sailing seriously, so my coach suggested that I go to the sailing school, where I started sailing Optimist, then Laser Radial. Later I started 470 crewing when I was 15. From 2008 my dream was to go to Olympics.”

As she became more serious she moved to Kiev and with her helm Anna Kyselova started to achieve good results, winning the 470 Junior Europeans and finishing runner-up at the Junior Worlds. “But it was not really working with our coach,” says Winkel, “so I stopped sailing.”

“I didn’t really have good support from the Sailing Federation. I decided to move to Germany. My boyfriend was German and this was a big step, but I looked at it, and I started sailing again. I found a helm and we were doing well, getting a silver at the Hempel World Cup Miami was probably our biggest achievement together, but then it didn’t really work for the Olympics so we stopped at the end of 2019, and I didn’t expect I’d come back to Olympic sailing anymore.”

COVID-19 intervened. With the delay in the Games there was a delay in the Olympic selection process for the German team. A few days later she gets a phone call. “It’s Luise, and she tells me she has stopped sailing with her sister who has started to windsurf on the iQFoil, so Lisa’s looking for a crew. I hadn’t been sailing for half a year and I was missing it a lot. This was a huge opportunity for me. So I was happy to come back to sailing and the dream to go to Olympics came back.”

However, the new team were low on support, “We couldn’t train with the German team, so the Italian and French teams helped us, trained with us.”

The qualification event was the 2021 World Championship in Vilamoura, Portugal. Wanse and Winkel sailed out of their skins, reaching the Medal Race. What was strange was the family connection with one of their rivals for selection. “The team we were fighting for qualification for Tokyo, the crew [Birte Winkel] is the sister of my husband.

“It was pretty tricky and a strange feeling to fight with a family member on the water. But we both knew that it was the dream ours to go to the Olympics. We just said that we will give our best, fight fair and may the best team win.”

After an epic battle in the Medal Race it had been the closest of finishes, just one point the difference between winning or losing German selection. “We managed to get one boat length in front, and it was a dream come true. We were laughing, crying, hugging, so many emotions.”

It has been a short but intense partnership with Wanser. Winkel can’t speak highly enough of her talented, determined helm.

“Luise’s really cool. She’s three years younger than me, 24, but she’s already so good at organisation – much better than me! She’s the manager of our team and the logistics and organisation. I appreciate a lot how motivated she always is.

“She’s pushing hard and she’s fighting to the end. She’s never tired. And it motivates me a lot to work even harder, to push stronger. And when I think that maybe I don’t feel good enough to do something, I just look at her and get motivated and just do it.

“When we are both on the water, we never want to stop training. We are always looking for things we can work on. She’s always happy, always in a good mood, which makes it very easy to work with her. I’m super happy to be here in this moment and achieving my dream together with her. I can’t believe we’re actually in Japan! It’s a dream I’ve had for 12 years, and now it has come true.”

Words by Andy Rice – World Sailing
Photography by Sailing Energy / World Sailing